Competency adjustment and workload balancing framework in multirobot task allocation

Dong-Hyun Lee,Ji-Hyeong Han,Eric Matson,Sheir Afgen Zaheer,Jong-Hwan Kim

doi:10.1177/1729881418812960

Abstract

This article proposes a framework for competency adjustment and workload balancing in multirobot task allocation. Competency represents the ability of a robot to execute a task in terms of quality and cost, and workload balancing denotes distribution of workload among robots. This framework considers the quality and cost of a robot for a task and adjusts them in accordance with environmental changes. For workload balancing, the framework utilizes the concept of subsidy to encourage participation from the less active members of the robot team. The proposed framework is implemented in a simulated cleaning mission. Simulation results demonstrate that this framework can adjust the competency in accordance with environmental changes and distribute workload among robots in a balanced manner.

Highlights

Coordination of multiple robots has become a significant research area in various application domains
A framework for competency adjustment and workload balancing in market-based coordination was proposed
To consider both task quality and task cost in task allocation, the robot capability matrix and task requirement matrix are proposed, and the relative importance of them is adjusted by the competency weight

Summary

Introduction

Coordination of multiple robots has become a significant research area in various application domains. The number of properties in the table represents the number of valuation bases, such as quality and cost, used by the auctioneer for selecting the winner in task allocation, and the bid structure denotes the form of bid information when the bidder submits its bid to the auctioneer. Each bidder submits a bid, consisting of task quality, task cost, and yield, to the auctioneer, and the auctioneer generates the utility of each. It is a continuous piecewise linear function connecting the points ðX i; LiÞ, defined as

N R Z j j

Conclusion